How Minerals Form

Vocabulary



Solution: A mixture in which one substance is dissolved in another
Vein: A narrow slab of mineral that is sharply different from the surrounding rock.

Outline

  • At 'Crater of Diamonds' State Park in Arkansas diamonds can be found.
    • Millions of years ago great pressure and heat changed carbon atoms into the hardest known substance called diamond.
      • Which are deep formed in the mantle erupted carrying diamonds to the surface.

Processes that form minerals:

  • Minerals can form in two different ways, through crystallization of melted materials and through crystallization of materials dissolved in water.
    • Crystallization is the process by which atoms are arranged to form a material with a crystal structure.

Minerals from Magma:

  • Minerals from as hot magma cools inside the crust or as lava hardens on the surface.
    • When these liquids cool to a solid state, they form crystals.

Minerals from hot water solutions:

  • A solution is a mixture in which one substance dissolves another.
    • As hot water solutions cools the elements and compounds leave the solution and crystallize as minerals.
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Minerals formed by evaporation:

  • Just like salt crystals can be seen after letting salt water evaporate, thick deposits of the mineral halite is formed over millions of years when ancient seas slowly evaporated.
    • In the United States such halite deposits occur in the Mid west, the South west and along the Gulf coast.

Where minerals are found:

  • Earth's crust is mostly made up of common rock - forming minerals combined in various types of rock.
    • Less common and rare minerals ,however ,are not distributed evenly throughout the crust.
      • Instead ,there are several process that concentrate minerals, or bring them together in deposit.